Pearl Harbor at 72: Poplar Grove vet ‘not a coward, but I was scared’

Saturday

Dec 7, 2013 at 5:00 AM

By Jennifer WheelerRockford Register Star

POPLAR GROVE — Jim Hanson carries memories from the Pearl Harbor attack, mental images of badly wounded sailors being pulled from the water by their comrades, hands grabbing for pieces of clothing that had not been made slippery by oil from the stricken battleships.

“I’m not a coward, but I was scared,” he said.

He was 18.

Today is the 72nd anniversary of the attack that plunged the United States into World War II. Lou Large, national president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, puts the remaining survivors at 1,000 to 1,100, based on membership in national survivor organizations.

Hanson, 90, of Poplar Grove is one of them.

He had been on night duty and returned to his bunk just before 8 a.m., when had heard a loud boom resonate at the naval station. He figured the noise came from a U.S. pilot crashing a plane.

He ran outside just in time to see one of the first torpedoes strike the USS Oklahoma.

“We didn’t even know at the time, us sailors, that the Japanese had the big red ball on the side of the airplane. We thought it was the Army holding maneuvers.”

Another sailor finally yelled to the men to run for their lives, so Hanson ran until he found his bearings. The Madison, Wis., native dashed into the middle of an oil tank farm but quickly realized that he would be killed instantly if a bomb dropped there.

He returned to the dock to help transport injured men to the mess hall on nearby Ford Island for medical attention.

It was such a chaotic scene that Hanson didn’t have time to process what was happening. He would later learn that 2,400 sailors, Marines and soldiers were killed in the attack and 21 ships sunk or heavily damaged.

“When you get to the point where you are frightened and it looks like the world is going to cave in on you and you see someone that’s worse off than you are, there’s something inside you that says, ‘Go get ’em. Help them out’,” Hanson said.

“After you get them helped out and so forth, you think back about it and say, ‘How the hell did I ever get through this?’”

Hanson’s soon-to-be-wife, Ann, was wrapping a present in her bedroom to send him. She bawled for days after hearing the news, fearing that he had died.

Ann finally left the house to reach out to Hanson families across the nation, hoping she might find his mother or father. The two had met at a dance while Hanson was stationed in Detroit, but she told his parents she was just a concerned friend.

His mother, Hazel, called Ann immediately with the good news and forwarded the postcard he had mailed: “Dear Mom, Don’t worry about me I’m OK so is Jim O. I’ll write more when I can. Its pretty terrible. Love Jim.”

Ann and Jim Hanson, who later made his career as a pilot, will celebrate 70 years of marriage in August.

Jim Hanson Jr., also of Poplar Grove, said he and his brother enjoy hearing their father’s stories about Pearl Harbor. They learn a new detail about the attack each time.

“It’s exciting to be part of his life because I get to claim that my dad was at Pearl Harbor,” he said.